1. Technical Field
The inventions relate to apparatus and methods for operating one or more elements of a data network.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
This section introduces aspects that may be helpful to facilitating a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is prior art or what is not prior art.
Energy efficiency is a design criterion in the communication industry. In particular, designing for energy efficiency can affect hardware, software configuration, and service deployment. Past advances in semiconductor technology helped to decrease the power per transmitted byte in data networks, but the effect of such advances on power efficiency is starting to plateau. Nevertheless, the demand for greater bandwidth may be actually increasing total energy consumption levels. Such increases in total energy consumption levels may significantly increase operating costs of data networks.
Some efforts to reduce energy consumption of networks have employed the turning off or slowing down hardware devices during periods of low traffic load. Indeed, many data networks have links with large available bandwidths during low utilization levels periods. Such situations may provide opportunities to turn off excess bandwidth in manners that significantly reduce energy consumption, e.g., during low utilization periods such as nights.
Herein, the bandwidth of a link relates the amount of data packets that the link is capable of transmitting in one direction in a preselected time interval.
In the Figures and text like reference numbers refer to functionally and/or structurally similar elements.
In the Figures, the relative dimensions of some features may be exaggerated to more clearly illustrate apparatus therein.
Herein, various embodiments are described more fully by the Figures and the Detailed Description of Illustrative Embodiments. Nevertheless, the inventions may be embodied in various forms and are not limited to the specific embodiments described in the Figures and the Detailed Description of the Illustrative Embodiments.